Gluck - Iphigénie en Aulide/Iphigénie en Tauride (Aix-en-Provence, 2024)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2024

Emmanuelle Haïm, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Corinne Winters, Russell Braun, Véronique Gens, Alasdair Kent, Florian Sempey, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Alexandre Duhamel, Nicolas Cavallier, Soula Parassidis, Lukáš Zeman, Tomasz Kumięga, Timothé Rieu, Daphné Guivarch

ARTE Concert - 11th July 2024

The important and influential reforms that Christoph Willibald Gluck brought to opera seria are still impressive and remain an evident feature in his versions of two connected Greek dramas for the French stage, Iphigénie en Aulide (1774) and Iphigénie en Tauride (1779). If you are used to viewing opera seria - and there have been many opportunities to revisit some of these great works in an authentic form over recent years - Gluck’s concise, minimal compositional form and the dramatic drive of through-composition feels thoroughly modern compared to the old traditional recitative and da capo aria form. And since the Greek dramas still have meaning that tells us about something about human experience in the modern world, so too do they benefit from this being highlighted in a modern production. All the more so when the two works are staged side by side as a single unit by Dmitri Tcherniakov for the 2024 Aix-en-Provence Festival 

Even the manner in which each of the works are presented on the stage allows for a continuous flow of drama that allows those themes to be better connected and explored. The overture for Iphigénie en Aulide shows Agamemnon's nightmare of carrying through his intention to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, demanded by the gods to ensure the safe passage of the Greek forces to Troy. Despite his pleas to Calchas, the Gods and even trying to ensure that Iphigenia doesn't arrive in Aulis, his efforts are in vain. The nightmare has a force of its own that will see it carried though by the time we get to the conclusion. The danger of what lies ahead remains as a driving force all the way through the opera, even if it doesn't come to pass that way in the opera, except for this one where it kind of does...

You can feel it even when, led to believe that Achilles who Iphigenia is to be married to has been unfaithful, Clytemnestra immediately pleads with her daughter to leave, but Iphigenia wants to find out the truth. There is an urgency here in the drama, in the music, which you can imagine intensifies as the drama progresses. There is no time for self-indulgent arias that stop the flow so that the tenor, soprano or mezzo-soprano can reflect on their misfortune. The dilemma can be felt, discussions and exchanges must be made (and perhaps there are still some aspects remaining for the seria form) but every scene feels like it is moving the drama forward, that events are happening quickly and there is an immediate need to act. The production bears that out while all the time maintaining an unreal air of regal sang froid, propriety and elegance, again all of which can be heard in the music. And in the voice, with Corrine Winters impressive in the title role.

Gluck's sense of pure musical drama is perhaps still not fully formed in Iphigénie en Aulide, and it is considered the lesser of the two works performed here. It's certainly less frequently staged than Iphigénie en Tauride. I personally don't buy into the idea of lesser Gluck. Lesser is just never a word I would use to describe any Gluck opera. Even his pre-reform works (all too rarely revived, alas) are superb and have their own qualities. It's not even a question of refinement, just that the later works benefit from a greater unity of form and content. It's hard however to see any weakness in Iphigénie en Aulide, particularly when it is well directed, as it is here. The music is beautiful and the sentiments are sincerely expressed without over-emphasis. It's a serious matter, a horrific one, a father about to sacrifice his daughter. You would actually expect there to be more outrage at the situation, but there is that element of knowing their duty, following the will of the gods and Iphigenia's love for her father, so instead it is profound grief that is evident here and expressed beautifully in the music and the singing.

To possibly overstate the relationship between the music and the direction, you could see the same intentions reflected in Elena Zaytseva set showing the house of Agamemnon as a house with transparent walls. It's elegant and stately, but there is nothing that can be kept hidden behind its doors. Tcherniakov takes that consistent worldview approach in most of his productions now, and it's evident here in the gloomy sepia tones, in the corruption of the royal family. The lengths to which they are prepared to go to cannot be overstated, so Tcherniakov puts it up there. The dream played out in the overture is a terrible presentiment and with the uniformity of the stage setting you can feel that tension reach a peak as Iphigenia dresses for wedding and brings herself closer to the terrible fate that awaits her after the celebrations. You see the nightmare unfold and repeat before your eyes.

We are dealing with mythology here so there is or should be no need to align this with any modern reality, although Krzysztof Warlikowski certainly managed to use contemporary themes successfully in his production of Gluck's Alceste. To say it's just mythology however doesn't take away from the human experience that Gluck presents in his version of Racine's tragedy, and it is enough for Tcherniakov to get that across. As well as highlighting the horror faced by Iphigenia, he doesn't neglect the fact that it is also a difficult duty for Agamemnon as a father, taking into account the contradiction between the public and private aspects of a king who needs to appear firm, commanding, brooking no doubt, no argument. Gluck's score bears all the complexity of these competing demands, Russell Braun's Agamemnon bringing this out in a fury out of remorse.

Considering the dramatic drive, there is nonetheless a variety of sentiments expressed. The wonderful dance music for the celebrations for Achilles and Iphigenia's marriage is retained and fits in well, and Achilles has a considerable part to play in the variations of tone and character as a figure caught in the middle of this absurd affair. Achilles is sung brilliantly by Alasdair Kent in the high tenor range, abruptly interrupting the course of events (and even the course of the music), and Véronique Gens is superb as Clytemnestra, inhabiting the role, responding with the dramatic expression of an expectantly grieving mother. That said, the sentiments expressed are limited by the singular drive of the situation towards a horrific notion of sacrifice, which might account for why the work is not more often revived.

As such it's a good idea then to expand the production to pair Iphigénie en Aulide with Iphigénie en Tauride, making this Aix-en-Provence production more of a fuller experience. It's been done before, relatively successfully at the Dutch National Opera. Tcherniakov however has a habit of overturning expectations and killing off figures who don't usually expire at the end of the opera and keeps alive those who traditionally die at the conclusion. At least here you would expect him to keep Iphigenia alive for "Part 2", but, well, that wouldn't be like Tcherniakov to make things easy now, would it? The impact of the family joining in a celebratory dance of death at the conclusion is certainly effective in its own way.

Iphigénie en Tauride is indeed then like a mirror image of Iphigénie en Aulide, Part 2: The Nightmare Continues. And indeed it opens with another nightmare, that of Clytemnestra murdering her husband Agamemnon. It takes place in the same outline of the house, only this time only a framework remains, sometimes neon lit (like Tcherniakov's Lulu), which when dulled down takes the appearance of a cage, a prison. Again, it's the overall tone that is important to the director, to establish the character of the work and make it effective rather than trying to find a way to make the archaic mythology work as a drama. Tcherniakov appropriately then plays Iphigénie en Tauride like it was Strauss’s Elektra, the tone one of the weight of crimes bringing increasing derangement and madness. Which is to be expected also on an island that executes any visitors, including a couple of shipwrecked Greek sailors who arrive there. Orestes too is damaged, deranged, tormented and full of aggression from his experiences.

Another characteristic found in Dmitri Tcherniakov productions is his intention to humanise works, bringing elevated mythological themes down to a level where everyone can relate to what is going on. There are no mystical priestesses in robes here, no high priest, as for example with the Met production. The inhabitants of Tauris look like refugees, like Tcherniakov's Knights of the Holy Grail in his Parsifal, wrapped up in heavy clothing to protect against the elements. The framework of a set becomes more a place of the mind here, an echo or a shadow of Aulis, where Orestes murders his mother in a ghostly recurrent nightmare. With its use of lighting illuminating scenes from the waking nightmare, it strikes a contrast that explores the work from the human experience as well as the deeper level of the psychological impact. As such, it reflects of course Gluck's musical exploration of the tone, mood and intent of the work.

Considering how he left things at the conclusion of Aulide, you can be sure that the director will - and consequently needs to - reinvent what takes place at the conclusion of this work, but it also has an impact elsewhere. Tcherniakov very much underplays the traditional key scene of the revelation of brother and sister. There is a gap of shocked silence, but Iphigenia seems to already know it's Orestes and is just waiting on her brother to finally acknowledge the reality of the tragic family misfortune. And again, it would be wrong to think that it's just Orestes who has suffered. As in Aulide, the goddess Diana (Soula Parassidis) appears at the conclusion as a double of Iphigenia. Quite what you are to make of that and how much psychoanalytical examination you want to subject the work to is up to you, but it's consistent in its reference back to what takes place in Aulis. What is perhaps more worthy of consideration is how this applies to the state of the world today, to current wars where victims become executioners. The horror of that doesn't need to be spelled out.

Whether you like Tcherniakov's work on the operas or not, the intentions are sincere and thought-provoking. What is not questionable however is the quality of these works themselves and the impact they have in this production by the joining the two operas together. The singing in Iphigénie en Tauride relies as much in the impact of the choral work, which was excellent throughout, as it does on Orestes and Iphigenia. Both Florian Sempey and Corrine Winters were fine, but it was certainly more of a challenge for Winters, singing two operas back-to-back and the latter in a lower tessitura than she would normally sing. It felt a little less dynamic as a result, but the direction also called for a muted performance here. The real winner here was Gluck, the music side-by-side, back-to-back and end-to-end doubly glorious under the baton of conductor Emmanuelle Haïm.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Aix Festival Digital Stage

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande (Zurich, 2016)

Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande

Opernhaus Zurich, 2016

Alain Altinoglu, Dmitri Tchernaikov, Corinne Winters, Kyle Ketelsen, Jacques Imbrailo, Brindley Sherratt, Damien Göritz, Yvonne Naef, Charles Dekeyser, Reinhard Mayr

BelAir - Blu-ray

There's no excuse really for not doing something creative and original with a work as unique and enigmatic as Pelléas et Mélisande. The story is deceptively simple on the surface, but it does have complex undercurrents that don't necessarily translate easily to anything obviously contemporary, so it demands an imaginative response. You would certainly expect a director like Dmitri Tcherniakov to find a new and modern way of looking at the work and for this 2016 Zurich production he employs a similar approach in look and feel that he has employed in other recent productions - in Carmen at Aix-en-Provence, in Les Troyens at the Paris Opera - which is to say an openly psychoanalytical approach.

When I say 'openly' that means that the director doesn't just place emphasis on the overt symbolism that is there throughout Pelléas et Mélisande, but he actually has a therapist up there on the stage, and - as with Don José in Carmen, and Dido in Les Troyens - he uses that figure as a way of drawing a character out of a deep trauma through psychoanalysis. Mélisande is and has always been a fascinating character to explore, very much a damaged figure, and Tcherniakov wouldn't be the first to see Mélisande as an abused female controlled by men (see Katie Mitchell's 2016 Aix-en-Provence production), but there's always the danger of a director (or the therapist) rationalising and explaining too much of the enigmatic mystery of the opera.

So in Dmitri Tcherniakov's production, Mélisande is not found in a forest, but led into a brightly-lit modern office or stylish living room in a state of deep shock. Her therapist, Golaud tries to get her to relive or reveal the deep-rooted cause of her distress, telling her to imagine sitting by a pool of water. A man approaches. How do you feel? ("Ne me touchez-pas!"). Why are you crying? Has someone harmed you? It's a perfect fit that captures the circularity of Mélisande's condition. We don't know what trauma this young woman has experienced, but the suggestion is that it's probably something similar to what she is about to go through again in Allemonde.

Suggestion is the key word here. It doesn't need to be explicitly stated because it's already hinted at in Debussy's score, not least in its ability to almost control, halt, shift and suspend notions of time. The Mélisande we discover at the end of the work is in a similar condition to the one we see at the start. It's almost as if she has been wiped clean by Golaud, by his authoritative 'therapist-like' manner, but the trauma remains buried deep and resurfaces as she experiences what we imagine must be similar conditions of mistreatment, abuse, mistrust, possessiveness and control. Tcherniakov's way into Pelléas et Mélisande respects the enigma of the work, finding - in combination with the music under Alain Altinoglu's direction - that unique and slightly sinister character of the piece.

As a concept it's an interesting proposition, but it still remains a challenge to develop it. Initially, when the therapist marries his patient and brings her home, it looks like Golaud's family are slightly alarmed at the idea, but soon they also start to put other dubious methods of practice into the treatment of Mélisande. Even Pelléas seems to treat her more as an object of curiosity or a case study furthering Golaud's experiments by practicing hypnosis on the young woman, placing her mentally rather than physically in those dark places that Maeterlinck describes in the original work. We already assume these are metaphorical in the work anyway, so whether that is following the idea through or overly spelling it out is debatable.

While it is fascinating to approach the work this way, personally I tend towards the latter view. It's not so much a case of Tchernaikov over-explaining the work as detracting from its mystery. Tcherniakov's approach towards demystification can produce interesting results in works like Dialogues des Carmélites or Macbeth, but it does tend to take away a little from works that have what some would see as more of a spiritual dimension (Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde). While there's no doubt that at heart Pelléas et Mélisande is a domestic drama as much as Macbeth is, those works also have an extraordinary way of describing or suggesting deeper undercurrents and complex emotions, and that is something that you can't afford to lose in this work.

Some mystery and ambiguity remains inevitably, as Tcherniakov can't quite fit the remainder of the work to his psychoanalytical approach, but it does tend toward the view of Mélisande being in an abusive relationship but under a kind of enchantment that prevents her from leaving. Golaud certainly lives up to this reading to a large extent, although Tcherniakov underplays some of the situations, making it more of a game play, which makes it all a little more sinister. Pelléas isn't quite the young innocent here, but controlling also, putting images in Mélisande's head. Mélisande is reduced to a shattered woman, walking around in a horrified troubled daze for most of the opera, which takes away somewhat from a more nuanced and dynamic view of her character.

Fortunately the singing performances are all exceptional, working with this conception of the work but also finding ways to express that more nuanced aspect that is suggested in Debussy's score. I'd go even as far as to say that all the principals are perfect matches for Debussy's score, having a wonderful lyrical enchantment with a darkly sinister or troubled edge. That's always the case with Jacques Imbrailo as Pelléas, but Corinne Winters is also impressive despite having her range of dramatic expression restricted and Kyle Ketelsen is an intriguing Golaud. All of them do find interesting ways of expression that is brought out by Tcherniakov's direction.

If there's some degree of magical enchantment taken out of the work and its dark Allemonde locations, Tcherniakov nonetheless comes up with a very stylish decor for the set that has its own sense of attractive entrapment. It all looks pretty good too in HD in the BelAir Blu-ray release with High Resolution soundtracks in LPCM 2.0 and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. There are no extras other than a booklet notes interview with Dmitri Tcherniakov, a synopsis and a full trackisting. The Blu-ray disc is all-region and has subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.

Links: Opernhaus Zurich

Mozart - Così fan tutte (London, 2016)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Così fan tutte

Royal Opera House, 2016

Semyon Bychkov, Jan Philipp Gloger, Corinne Winters, Angela Brower, Daniel Behle, Alessio Arduini, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Sabina Puértolas

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Purely in terms of the musical and singing performances, the Royal Opera House's 2016 production of Così fan tutte is reasonably good, if not quite exciting or revelatory. Semyon Bychkov conducts an elegant account of the work, but it doesn't particularly fizz with those energised moments of Mozartian brilliance. The singing performances are fresh, bright and vibrant, but don't seem to be able to carry the weightier considerations that are in the opera either. Jan Philipp Gloger's direction has an interesting concept that actually sets out to bridge that gap rather well, providing plenty of visual interest in the sets and situations, but somehow it still never quite coheres the way you might like it.

Making Don Alfonso a theatre director does take the work into a meta-theatrical direction, the opera even opening with the director and the cast of his latest work taking their bows at the start of this performance during the overture. The idea is not just to be clever, but to consider the meaning of Mozart and Da Ponte's opera in the context of art and artifice. It's not real-life, it's an opera. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have a serious point to make, but it can do it through music, theatre and, although it might seem like a contradiction, and is less commonly seen these days in this opera, it can be serious through comedy. As a theatre director then, Don Alfonso uses a number of theatrical situations to put love to the test and illustrate his point about fidelity and constancy to the two unrealistically idealistic young couples.

The Royal Opera House production tries to address the issues of love and fidelity in the opera in a lighter and more playful fashion without having to resort to that darker view of male and female relationships and middle-class ideals that you will find in some other productions (Michael Haneke and Christophe Honoré). It's true that some of the ideas expressed in the opera might be considered rather out of step with modern attitudes towards gender politics and political correctness, but Mozart and Da Ponte's comedy is actually just as challenging of prevailing attitudes. One need only look at their other two collaborations to realise that the same principles are applied to Così fan tutte. The theatricality and forced romanticism of the situations in Gloger's production highlight the fact that Mozart and Da Ponte are satirising such attitudes, regarding the notion of constancy and fidelity as nothing more than an artificial bourgeois construct that prevents us from following the true dictates of the human heart.

And it's true. Don Alfonso and his rather more practical minded co-conspirator from the serving classes Despina are actually correct. Not so much in the idea that it's women who are inconstant (it's taken for granted that men are fickle), but rather what Così fan tutte shows us is that anyone can fall in love, the human heart can be easily swayed and circumstances (or fate if you like) all have a part to play. It's not about fidelity, it's about human nature, and when it comes to exploring the wonder and the mysterious ways of the human heart, there's no-one like Mozart for showing its infinite variety and capacity for love. It might not always work out how we might like it, but in contrast to the cynicism that you can find in some modern productions, Mozart's music actually shows us that rather than leading to disillusionment, he considers this to be something wonderful and something to be celebrated.

Gloger's production then captures both the artifice of romantic ideals where we don disguises and play roles, but in each of the theatrical settings it also shows the wonderful variety of circumstances in which love can work its magic and catch us unawares, breaking down any preconceived ideals. It's a production that is perfectly in tune with the playfulness of the idea and the execution of the original, matching its cleverness, its richness of mood and character. Mozart and Da Ponte tell us to keep an open mind, and the same thing can be applied to this production. Every time you come to a Mozart opera, you can experience and discover something new about this wonderful work, and this one actually extends on some of its themes rather brilliantly, if you have an open mind and no preconceptions.

In execution however, it somehow doesn't quite come together the way it should. It's perhaps the difficulty of maintaining all those levels and trying to provide something for everyone; trying to retain some amount of the familiar with a few new ideas to challenge them. It's also down to the nature of the work itself, which demands young, fresh singers, but expects them to have the experience to maintain those various levels of superficiality and sophistication. Corinne Winters, Angela Brower, Daniel Behle and Alessio Arduini however give engaging individual performances of equal weight that permits them to interact well as a team. Sabina Puértolas is a lively irreverent Despina, and Johannes Martin Kränzle perfect as a generous rather than a cynical Don Alfonso.

The disconnect however appears to be more in the musical performance. Semyon Bychkov keeps the tone deceptively light, and it's this tone that dominates without either connecting meaningfully or contrasting with what is going on up on the stage. While Gloger's sets carry the sense of game play and role play, each of the 'actors' playing their allotted roles, it all feels a little detached and doesn't find a way to carry through to the ambiguous feelings that linger with the revelations made at a very confused resolution. There's an effort made to end on a wistful note, but you never get the sense that there is anything serious at stake here and no one really gets hurt. The ambiguity about Così however is what keeps it fresh and keeps you thinking, and this production does give you plenty to think about.

The Blu-ray presentation of the production also gives it a new lease of life, particularly in the High Resolution audio mixes of the musical performance. The extras on the BD are scant, but the introduction covers the all you need to know about the director's intentions for the concept, the characters and the nature of the work itself.

Links: Royal Opera House YouTube 

Mozart - Così fan tutte (Royal Opera House, 2016)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Così fan tutte

Royal Opera House, 2016

Semyon Bychkov, Jan Philipp Gloger, Corinne Winters, Angela Brower, Daniel Behle, Alessio Arduini, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Sabina Puértolas

Cinema Season Live - 17 October 2016

Così fan tutte has never quite been treated with the same love and affection that is given to Mozart's other two collaborations with Lorenzo da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro or Don Giovanni. Perhaps it's because Così fan tutte is more overtly a comedy, but there are comic elements in all three operas. Perhaps the same weight of insight into human feelings and behaviour just isn't there or just gets lost amidst the farce, but that depends very much on the choices made in direction. In recent years for example, Michael Haneke and Christophe Honoré - both filmmakers - have explored the very dark side of human behaviour in Così fan tutte to a largely successful degree.

Perhaps all Haneke and Honoré really did with Così fan tutte was find a way to connect the audience to an emotional reality within the opera that the comic side doesn't achieve quite so well, but that raises the question about whether or not this betrays the true intent of the work. Like Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni all sides of human behaviour are explored, and there are also dark and disturbing aspects that are there to be drawn upon in Così fan tutte. The answer would seen to lie in achieving a human balance between the comedy and the darkness and, if nothing else, this search to reveal the true worth of Mozart in Così fan tutte means that the work is always a fascinating challenge.

Jan Philipp Gloger's production for the Royal Opera House takes the challenge head-on by recognising that, perhaps even more than the other two Mozart/Da Ponte collaborations, art and artifice are at the heart of Così fan tutte and part of its very nature. Even if it's entirely in the spirit of the work, placing the emphasis on the artifice in the opera with an openly theatrical presentation is however a risky gamble as it tends to place even more distance between the situation and the truth behind it. The real test of whether the work can reveal its deeper human predicament lies more with the performers here, but despite truly great performances from an impressive young cast, the production does seem to work against them.

By using and emphasising theatrical devices as the basis for the production, Jan Philipp Gloger adheres to the comic principles that are at the heart of the work, and the means by which Mozart and Da Ponte make their case. The subtitle of Così fan tutte - A School for Lovers - tells you of this intent. The plot of the opera, like the opera itself, relies on the artifice of art to get its message across. Art is a means of arriving at a truth about inner sentiments that outside 'realism' might not be capable of reaching. Just as Mozart's music is a means of expressing those feelings in relation to love and fidelity in Così fan tutte, so too the use of theatre has the power to invent situations that put those feelings to the test.

The lesson that Don Alfonso has to impart to his students Ferrando and Guglielmo is not just that all women are by nature inconstant and unfaithful in their love, but rather that love is not some romantic ideal that we can choose to bend to our will. The heart has no master. The meaning and intent of this lesson is a serious one, but presenting it as a comedy does pose some problems that often tend to overshadow the truth of the work. Rather than play it straight with the two men donning stupid disguises as moustachioed Albanians that would fool no-one, there has to be some sort of complicity in going along with the game on the part of both men and their partners, Fiordiligi and Dorabella. It has to be seen as a role-play on some level that delivers the truth.

Gloger's idea of having Don Alfonso as a theatre director then has considerable merit, not least for the conceit of the two men dressing up and behaving out of character as they try and woo their respective fiancées into being unfaithful. As the theatrical sets and situations are levered into place, it is however clearly a high-level concept and not one could bear any realistic scrutiny. Suspension of disbelief is necessary, but at some level surely we must all realise when we go to the theatre or the opera that we are never watching realism on the stage, but just people acting. But acting for a good reason, which is to get to a deeper truth, and, let's not forget, to entertain. This production entertains and impresses and it even gets the all-important human message across through its art, but it does still feel a little too artificial.

It's through no fault of the singing or the musical performance. On every level this is an outstanding performance. While the characters are by no means interchangeable (other than for the necessities of the plot evidently), I often find that it's harder work to distinguish or perhaps care enough to consider what are the defining characteristics of the four main characters. They might not be as multifaceted and complex individuals as those in The Marriage of Figaro, but they can still have depth and personality. Genuine attention to the music and the arias show that this is the case and if it doesn't come across it not as much an issue with Mozart and Da Ponte's depiction but more likely with the direction or the singer's ability to bring something to their role. There is no issue at all with the singers here in the Royal Opera House production, but perhaps the direction doesn't do enough to highlight the contrasts and differences.

As far as singing and characterisation go the performances however are outstanding. Corinne Winters, Angela Brower, Daniel Behle and Alessio Arduini are just delightful as the confused lovers, each of them bearing equal weight, each of them meeting the challenges of the work, all of them bringing considerable youthful personality and sympathy to the roles in their individual arias, in their duets and ensembles. It's marvellous to see such a team interacting, working with each other in a way that illustrates all the points of the music and the drama. Sabina Puértolas too is one of the best Despinas I have seen, her singing performance impressive, bringing a lively fun personality and a sense of pleasure at mixing things up on the stage. The wonderfully versatile Johannes Martin Kränzle is comparatively rather restrained as Don Alfonso, but dressed in period costume as the 'director' (as Lorenzo da Ponte?), it was hard to really grasp his real nature here.

Musically too, there's a good performance here from the orchestra under Semyon Bychkov that keeps the tone deceptively light, but it's this tone that dominates without either connecting meaningfully or contrasting with what is going on up on the stage. While Gloger's sets carry the sense of game play and role play, each of the 'actors' playing their allotted roles, it all feels a little detached and doesn't find a way to carry through to the ambiguous feelings that linger with the revelations made at a very confused resolution. There's an effort made to end on a wistful note, but you never get the sense that there is anything serious at stake here and no one really gets hurt, which, for all the criticisms you could make about it, is not something you could say about Christophe Honoré's devastating conclusion in his production for Aix-en-Provence and Edinburgh.

Links: Royal Opera House

Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini (ENO 2014 - Cinema Live)

Hector Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini

English National Opera, 2014

Edward Gardner, Terry Gilliam, Michael Spyres, Pavlo Hunka, Corinne Winters, Nicholas Pallesen, Willard White, Paula Murrihy, Nicky Spence, David Soar, Morgan Pearse, Anton Rich

ENO Screen - 17 June 2014

The 'opera semi-seria' is a curious beast. Are you supposed to take it seriously or not? Half-seriously maybe? I find it a particularly problematic term when it's applied to Benvenuto Cellini. The plot of Berlioz's opera is inspired by a real historical figure (1500 - 1571) and from events described in his autobiography, but there's a considerable amount of both farce and pomposity in Berlioz's treatment of the subject. It's hard to really know what to make of it.

Benvenuto Cellini is not in any case a work that is performed very often. A production for the 2007 Salzburg Festival by Philipp Stölzl didn't make the work any easier to get on with, his staging exaggerating the farce with colourful cartoon robots, while the orchestra romped through the overblown score. I expected much the same from ex-Monty Python director Terry Gilliam, but surprisingly, the English National Opera's 2014 production of this neglected and misunderstood work actually finds a balance that is better suited to drawing out the musical and dramatic qualities of the work.

The association of Terry Gilliam with the English National Opera has clearly been creatively revitalising for both parties. As a filmmaker, Gilliam's irreverence and his single-minded determination to put his surreal and uncommercial vision up on the screen (regardless of budget) has frequently put him at odds with the Hollywood movie industry. Creatively however, Gilliam has slipped into a bit of a rut and any efforts to so something groundbreakingly different (such as the extraordinary Tideland) have proved to be box-office flops. The box-office is of prime consideration for the ENO in these ties of austerity and arts budget cuts, but there's also been a concerted effort by the house to reach out to a new audience, and Gilliam's invitation to direct opera has been very much part of that design. It's one that has drawn a lot of publicity and, most importantly, acclaim.

While Gilliam and the ENO have proved to be a good match, the combination of a maverick director like Terry Gilliam with a rather conventional and mainstream establishment composer like Hector Berlioz didn't seem to be the most natural pairing. Berlioz however, for all his considerable ability and creativity, was never fully embraced by the French musical establishment as an opera composer and struggled all his life to get his works off the ground. There are definitely parallels with Berlioz's efforts to stage his hugely ambitious grand opera Les Troyens, only to see it drastically cut and only half of the work performed in his lifetime and Gilliam's very public battle to screen his 1985 masterpiece Brazil after the film was taken out off his hands and cut into an entirely different movie by the studio.

The Damnation of Faust, Gilliam's first production with the ENO however proved beyond any doubt the viability of the director applying his talents to the opera stage as well as the suitability of his vision and temperament with that of Berlioz. It seems only natural then, looking at Berlioz's other works and discounting (for the moment) the challenges of taking on a beast like Les Troyens, to invite Gilliam back to tackle another Berlioz opera. Benvenuto Cellini is the perfect work with a central character very much in line with Gilliam's sensibility and imagination. It's a work full of colourful figures, with tragic and comic elements and grand creative and romantic gestures made in the story (in the pressures of Cellini's commission to create a vast statue for Pope Clement VII) and in the score itself.

Surprisingly, Gilliam's Benvenuto Cellini resists unnecessary clutter and caricature and plays the work fairly straight, or at least at straight as it's possible to play this work. He reserves the really big gestures for those moments (the Mardi Gras, the arrival of Pope in all his pomp and ceremony) where it's necessary to make a specific impact. All the rest is lavishly scored by Berlioz, and Gilliam wisely doesn't seek to compete with it or contribute to setting it up as parody. There are a few typically Gilliam touches in the drawing of grotesque characters and he can't resist allowing the dancers a few camp gestures, but they're just flourishes to decorate the effect and perfectly in keeping with the overall tone.

There's not much else required in the way of interpretation in Benvenuto Cellini, and there's nothing really to be gained from a modern updating either. It's a colourful historical episode that takes its amusement from the personalities involved, and Gilliam accordingly sets his staging as stylised period. Cellini, his reputation and his exploits are enough to work with on their own terms, the statue he is preparing for Pope Clement VII big enough in scale to tell you everything you need to know about the extravagance of the commission. Gilliam cheekily (ahem!) places a large model of a bottom among the work-in-progress casts littering the sculptor's workshop, but it's the perfect antidote to the grand declarations of the Pope and his dire threats to Cellini should he fail to deliver his commission.

For most of the production, Gilliam lets the work speak for itself, focussing mainly on keeping the characters personalities real and defining their relationships credibly without letting too much farce get in the way. With Edward Gardner conducting, this works very well. Berlioz's score emphasises and underlines, swirling with clever flourishes, harmonies and melodies, and Gardner just goes with the flow. Musically and dramatically,it's enough to keep things moving, and Gilliam clearly has a good team of movement directors and choreographers who know how to keep it all visually interesting. When those grand gestures are called for however, Gilliam pulls out all the stops, converting the Coliseum itself into a grand Mardi Gras celebration, with colourful tickertape parades of huge puppets, whirling acrobats and dancers.

The attention to detail in the characterisation is extended to the cast, who similarly play their roles without unnecessary exaggeration. Most of them are caricatures of one sort or another, either romantic love-interests or cartoon villains, but are played and sung with verve by the cast. The most flamboyant is Pope Clement VII - but this is clearly called for in all the ceremonial music that accompanies his entrances. Willard White however anchors it with a solid, serious performance, his Pope seemingly oblivious in his self-importance to how ridiculous he looks and acts. 

Where it not for the fact that the performances are universally good, you suspect that Michael Spyres could carry this production almost single-handedly. His is a gloriously sung and warmly characterised Cellini. Even singing in English - translated well, if not quite with the same lyrical flow of the original French (now competing on an international stage via live cinema relays, the ENO really need to review this English-only policy) - Spyers rich musical voice is a delight, ensuring that there's real character and personality behind all the visual and aural extravagance of Benvenuto Cellini.